Interlinguistic Concordance in International Adjudication: The Translation Link in Multilingual Interpretation by the Court of Justice of the EU and the WTO’s Appellate Body

Comparative interpretation practices differ among international adjudicative bodies in cases of insufficient concordance between language versions of multilingual legal instruments. This study examines instances of explicit comparison by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body (AB), including the text types and number of languages involved, the cases of divergence identified, the interpretation methods applied, the supporting material used, and more specifically, the discrepancies that may be related to translation issues. This “translation link” can often be inferred in the CJEU’s comparative interpretation, with a markedly teleological orientation and a less comprehensive comparison of the EU official languages. In contrast, the AB shows a more systematic application of literal methods when comparing the three language versions of WTO texts, including the frequent recourse to dictionaries, and no evidence of translation issues as the origin of cases of apparent divergence. This research illustrates the key role of high-quality translation in ensuring legal certainty, and the potential benefits of integrating translation expertise into multilingual legal interpretation processes in international adjudication.